The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

When we did 'Breaking the Waves,' he had a sign on the wall that said, 'Make mistakes.'

My skin is hard when it comes to my music. But with my movies, I'm still a virgin in a lot of ways. I'm not used to being shot down for no reason.

I mean, nobody wants to lose. And nobody wants to be playing at the end of the year when you don't have a chance to make the playoffs.

I've fallen on my face. I've made mistakes. I've got plenty of records where I listen back, and I think, 'I wouldn't've done that.'

My whole life, I've felt like I can do anything on the basketball court, from playing point guard in high school to having to play center one year in high school, doing everything in college and going through different roles in Philadelphia.

I think players changing coaches is normal.

Any organisation has to go through at least one depression to see how it survives, and a normal economic cycle takes seven years.

Our challenge isn't that we can't be motivated. It's not that we aren't smart, excitable, or that we lack passion - what we don't have is the ability to sustain motivation over time.

When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.

One of the great surprises is that humans come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing, facing their own contradictions, and making friends with their own mistakes and failings. People who have had no inner struggles are invariably both superficial and uninteresting. We tend to endure them more than communicate with them, because they have little to communicate.

We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.